Andy Verity

My book Rigged, exposing an establishment cover-up at the highest level on both sides of the Atlantic followed by a whole series of miscarriages of justice, has already sold out its initial print run and been reprinted in the UK. Now it's being published in the United States:

Saudi Arabia has come to view Israel and its actions as a threat to regional security and sees the UAE’s alignment with Israel in a poor light. Read @NeilQuilliam1's latest analysis for Chatham House⤵️ chathamhouse.org/2026/05/how-ir…

This is huge and confirms that the notion that the Saudis were quietly backing the US war on Iran was a complete myth. It never made sense to start with: given the eminently predictable devastating consequences the war has had on Saudi Arabia, why on earth would they have signed up for it? It also confirms that the Saudis - and, I suspect, many other actors in the region - no longer see US military presence on their soil as a a security guarantee, but instead as a vector of insecurity. Which is another way in which Iran is winning strategically. Many people were wondering what possible strategic calculus Iran could have in "mindlessly bombing all their neighbors," as many were putting it. Well, the whole point was precisely so those neighbors would do exactly what the Saudis just did. Q.E.D.

“A person afflicted with nationalism believes that his own country is the most civilised and humane country in the world while its enemies are guilty of every imaginable atrocity and vileness. Since they are so vile and atrocious, while we are so civilised and humane, there is no degree of vileness and atrocity which we may not legitimately practise towards them. This is the underlying creed of nationalism.” ― Bertrand Russell

Germany figured something out that the rest of the world is still pretending it doesn't need to know. 11 things. One thread. Some of these will make you uncomfortable. All of them are true. 🇩🇪🧵

The importance of this news is being underestimated. In my opinion it is epoch making. China is apparently telling its refiners to ignore US sanctions and to conduct their business in disregard of them. In other words it is telling them that if the US comes for them because they are violating US sanctions, they have China's back. If that expands to include other Chinese businesses, and sooner or later it surely will, the US sanctions era is over. The US remains an enormous consumer market, but China holds the high cards. It is both the 'workshop of the world' and increasingly its high tech research institute and laboratory, and it is also rapidly becoming a major source of global investment capital. Trading with the US remains profitable and attractive, but not trading with China is not an option, even for the United States. It goes beyond saying that if China opposes US sanctions they become unenforceable. It means that they become impossible, and the whole structure which has been created around them must end. Fyodor Lukyanov, who is very well connected in Moscow, is saying the Chinese are undertaking a review to assess whether the US is, as the Russians say, 'agreement incapable'. If so then this decision points to the outcome. @RnaudBertrand @AXChristoforou @TheGrayzoneNews @RealPepeEscobar @thecyrusjanssen youtube.com/watch?v=PZmepe…

A quote on the wall outside the BBC headquarters next to a statue of George Orwell says, ‘if liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear’. But do US TV networks have that right? : nytimes.com/2026/04/28/bus… via @NYTimes

There is a STUNNINGLY SIGNIFICANT article in @thetimes today by their great Assistant Business Editor @jameshurley that makes reference to banking and derivatives expert Ian Tyler, @johnmcdonnellMP (leader of @appgonifandffs) and @IanByrneMP (leader of the @NowHillsborough campaign in Parliament.) Why is @jameshurley's article so STUNNINGLY SIGNIFICANT? Because it explains that City veteran Ian Tyler, one the country's top banking and derivatives experts, alleges that swaps came with undisclosed "hidden credit lines" - essentially large, undisclosed liabilities registered against borrowers that damaged businesses' credit ratings, caused breaches of loan covenants, and in many cases drove companies into insolvency. You can think of them as being a bit like having a mortgage that you were never told you had - shocking I know, but true. Ian Tyler states that hidden credit liabilities and their catastrophic consequences to thousands of UK SMEs (whereby as well as many businesses, livelihoods, and homes being lost there have also been suicides) were excluded from the compensation scheme to save banks billions, and that for over a year, he has been trying to get @TheFCA to give straight answers to straight questions about the scandal. Ian Tyler rightly argues that if @TheFCA gave honest answers it would expose serious flaws in the regulator's position. The article also goes on to explain that a cross-party group of MPs led by @johnmcdonnellMP is calling for a judge-led inquiry. To my mind only those that don't want the full truth to get out into the open would prevent an inquiry happening. Otherwise why would they not want one? The article ends by explaining that the Government (led by @Keir_Starmer at @10DowningStreet) has rejected the request for an inquiry. That rejection was delivered by City Minister @LucyRigby at the conclusion of a debate in @UKParliament that you can watch in full here: parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/67…. During the debate @IanByrneMP likens this banking misconduct and regulatory failure scandal to the cover ups to do with the @NowHillsborough disaster and the #PostOffice #scandal. I think he is spot on for doing exactly that because this scandal reeks of exactly the same kind of cover up as Hillsborough, Post Office, Contaminated Blood, Grenfell and so on. Who thinks the UK Government led by @Keir_Starmer at @10DowningStreet should change his mind and give the victims of this scandal the inquiry they are calling for? I certainly do, because "sunlight is the best disinfectant" and it seems there is a great deal of disinfecting to be done now that we know as explained in @jameshurley's excellent article THAT @TheFCA HAS EVEN REFUSED TO ANSWER IAN TYLER'S QUESTIONS DIRECTLY WHEN APPROACHED BY @thetimes! Why is @TheFCA not answering those questions??? The STUNNINGLY SIGNIFICANT article is here: thetimes.com/business/compa… And there is also an archive version of it that I have found here: archive.is/AuID7 All the MPs who spoke up at/supported the debate about this banking and regulatory failure scandal should be applauded for doing so. They are: @johnmcdonnellMP @IanByrneMP @JimShannonMP @NeilForPoole @LibDemDavid @BambosMP @JoeMorrisMP @AndyMcDonaldMP @Steffanaquarone @mpsusanmurray And I suspect there will be many more MPs speaking up for the victims of similar banking/financial misconduct and catastrophic regulatory failure scandals in future debates. If you want to understand all about this then watch the debate and read the incredibly informative report by @BankConfidenti1 that you can get to here: bankconfidential.com/wp-content/upl… And thank you for taking time to read my Tweet!

Trump Administration Live Updates: U.S. Attorney Closes Inquiry of Fed Chair Pushed by Trump nytimes.com/live/2026/04/2… via @NYTimes

#PostOfficeScandal #NetworkTransformation #NFSP ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER INQUIRY Post Office Limited: The Gift That Keeps on Investigating So here we are again. The Department for Business and Trade has today published the terms of reference for yet another independent investigation into Post Office Limited. This time: the Network Transformation Programme. The one that ran from 2010 to 2019. The one that ended seven years ago. The one involving allegations of coercion, bullying, misrepresentation, and the provision of unregulated financial advice to postmasters being press-ganged onto new contracts. Coercion. Bullying. Unregulated financial advice. Misrepresentation. Not the words of a campaigner. Not the words of a Barrister in an adversarial hearing. The words of a Government department. In a formal terms of reference. Published today. On GOV.UK. Under the crest. The investigation will be led by Adam Tolley KC and will proceed in three elegant phases: gather evidence, analyse it, then produce an assessment that DBT can use "to decide whether further action may be needed." Whether. Further action. May be needed. Ponder, if you will, the category known in this document as "hard-to-place" SubPostmasters. People who wanted to leave the Post Office Network but were trapped: unable to receive their leaver's payment until a suitable replacement could be found. SubPostmasters, in other words, who were stuck. And who, while stuck, were apparently subject to the full range of NTP implementation practices now under examination. The document also notes — with admirable precision — that the investigation will examine scripts used by "field change advisors." Specialists, we are told, responsible for converting Branches to new operating models. One imagines those scripts were not light reading. Correspondence between the NFSP, Government Ministers, and Senior Officials is also in scope. Students of the Grant Funding Agreement between the National Federation of Subpostmasters and Post Office Limited — the arrangement by which the supposed representative body of SubPostmasters was funded by the organisation it was meant to hold to account — may find that particular thread worth watching. The scope excludes Horizon IT matters. Those, we are reminded, are covered elsewhere. The Scandal is now so large it requires formal partitioning. Postmasters affected by the NTP can submit evidence to NTPInvestigation@businessandtrade.gov.uk. They can also write to an address in Admiralty Place, London SW1A 2DY — should they prefer to do it the old-fashioned way, as perhaps befits an institution that has been doing things the old-fashioned way for rather longer than is comfortable. The final report will be published. Eventually. In the fullness of time. In the meantime: another investigation. Another KC. Another phase of evidence-gathering. Another assessment. Another decision about whether further action may be needed. The Network Transformation Programme ended in 2019. The Statutory Inquiry has not yet concluded. Fujitsu has not paid a penny. But we are, at least, still gathering evidence. 🧵1 of 2 @rbrooks45 @voiceofthePM @NFSP @fujitsu_uk @PostOffice @PostOfficeNews @biztradegovuk @liambyrnemp @CommonsBTC @CommonsPAC @darrenpjones @premnsikka @TimBushLondon @StephenBouvierX @marksweney @HouseofCommons @UKHouseofLords @CastletonLee @Janetsk20073533

The war with Iran will doubtlessly be studied for decades but what's already pretty clear at this stage is how much of a strategic defeat it is for the U.S. and Israel, perhaps the worst ever in their history (which is actually what former Israeli PM Yair Lapid already called it: x.com/yairlapid/stat…). I mean, how crazy is this: JP Morgan calculated (jpost.com/middle-east/ir…) that, as per the new Hormuz toll arrangement, Iran may get as much as $70-90 billion in additional annual revenue, representing a stunning 20% of its GDP, in extra revenue. Hilariously, Trump commented on Truth Social that the arrangement means “big money will be made” and “Iran can start the reconstruction process” (@realDonaldTrump/116367088879643074" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…). Damn right: they gained the single most valuable geographic rent on earth, by a huge margin. For comparison, the Suez Canal earns Egypt “only” $9-10B/year, and the Panama Canal about $5B. Stunning. Make no mistake, this establishes Iran as the new dominant power in the Middle-East. When you're a country that others need to effectively pay to do business in a region - which is what having a toll booth on Hormuz means in practice - you're no longer shut out of the global economy: you're the one charging admission. It's a phoenix rising from the ashes story if there ever was one (an apt metaphor since it comes from Persian mythology): after 47 years of sanctions, being the target of every trick in the book, and ultimately a war aimed at finishing them off, Iran is coming out the other end stronger than at any point in modern history. Above all, though, the most dramatic consequence of this war is what it means about U.S. power. As I argued in my previous article (open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert…), this war is qualitatively different from other U.S. wars in the past few decades, such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, etc. (the list is unfortunately very long). In those wars the pattern was roughly always the same, with an immense power differential between aggressor and victim. These were imperial wars, the empire attempting to crush a much weaker people whose only realistic recourse was guerrilla resistance. As I wrote, as spectators of these wars, if you had any moral sense, the dominant emotion was a kind of helpless disgust: you were watching a giant stomp through someone else’s house. This war wasn’t at all like that: stunningly, Iran managed to hold its own symmetrically and tactically against the United States and Israel. This is an absolutely crucial difference because it changes what losing means. When the U.S. lost in Vietnam or Afghanistan, it was embarrassing but ultimately manageable - the giant walked away with a bruised ego, and the world shrugged. Empires lose to guerrillas sometimes, it doesn’t say much about the empire's ability to fight a real war. But losing symmetrically - losing when your most advanced stealth fighters get shot down from the sky, your military bases are neutered across an entire theater (x.com/RnaudBertrand/…), your most advanced missile defense systems get destroyed, your enemy seizes control of the world’s most strategic waterway, your navy can’t reopen it, and your “allies” get bombed unforgivingly despite your “protection” - that's a different kind of losing entirely. That tells the world the giant isn't such a giant anymore. This is the topic of my latest article: what the war revealed, what it destroyed, and what may come next. I titled the article "Don't bluff someone who can't fold." You'll understand why when you read the article here: open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert…

לא היה אסון מדיני כזה בכל תולדותינו. ישראל לא היתה אפילו ליד השולחן כשנעשו החלטות הנוגעות לליבת הבטחון הלאומי שלנו. הצבא ביצע את כל מה שביקשו ממנו, הציבור הציג חוסן מדהים, אבל נתניהו נכשל מדינית, נכשל איסטרטגית, לא עמד באף אחת מהמטרות שהוא בעצמו הציב. ייקח לנו שנים לתקן את הנזקים המדיניים והאיסטרטגים שנתניהו חולל בגלל יוהרה, רשלנות וחוסר תכנון איסטרטגי. עוד פרטים: בהמשך היום.

The flagrant corruption in Washington is so extreme and outrageous. The Trump White House passed an executive order, which Wall Street had lobbied for, promoting private equity and private credit firms, cynically framing it as "democratizing access to alternative assets for 401(K) investors". In reality, Washington did this so wealthy investors in illiquid private credit funds, which made bad loans to struggling companies on the verge of default, could have exit liquidity, thereby leaving retirees and pension funds holding the bag. Now we learn that the US regime has been in bed with one of the worst culprits in the private credit industry, Blue Owl, and at least 33 members of the Trump administration have invested in Blue Owl’s funds. Blue Owl's stock crashed 40% in the first three months of 2026, after it limited withdrawals amid a private credit crisis. This comes just a few months after the White House tried to dump these garbage investments on retirees and pension funds. This should be a huge scandal, but unfortunately it's just a drop in the ocean of extreme corruption, shady financial schemes, and rampant insider trading in the US.

After months of defending the student loans system, Rachel Reeves finally acknowledged last week that there are issues. Fixing it isn't "front of the queue" though -- but should it be? This week's New Economy Brief investigates: neweconomybrief.net/the-digest/the…

The US has now sanctioned at least 12 judges, prosecutors, and legal experts linked to the ICC and the UN. Their “offense” was pursuing accountability for war crimes and violations of international law. Take a moment to think about the insanity of this.

The current energy crisis is equivalent to "two oil crises and one gas crash put all together" - according to International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol, based on the figures showing the scale of the reductions in oil and gas supply: aljazeera.com/economy/2026/3…

JUST IN: President Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power grid. Iran retaliated & responded by threatening to destroy the Gulf’s water supply. The 48-hour ultimatum just became a mutual hostage crisis where the hostages are not soldiers. They are 90 million Iranians who need electricity and tens of millions of Gulf residents who need desalinated seawater to drink. Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi and military officials warned through Tasnim that any US strike on Iranian power plants will trigger immediate attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and desalination facilities. This is not about oil. Kuwait gets 90 percent of its drinking water from desalination. Qatar gets nearly 99 percent. Bahrain 85 percent. Saudi Arabia 70 percent. The UAE 42 percent. The Gulf produces 40 percent of the world’s desalinated water through 400 facilities, with 90 percent of output concentrated in approximately 56 large coastal plants sitting on shorelines within 350 kilometres of Iranian launch positions. These are not hardened military installations. They are open-air industrial complexes powered by fossil fuels, processing seawater into the liquid that comes out of taps in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Kuwait City. A single cruise missile into the Jubail desalination complex in Saudi Arabia, the largest in the world, threatens water supply to the capital. There are no wells under Riyadh sufficient to replace it. There are no rivers. There is desalinated seawater from the coast or there is evacuation. The precedent already exists. On March 7, strikes damaged a desalination plant on Iran’s Qeshm Island, cutting water to 30 villages. An Iranian drone struck a Bahraini facility the following day. The infrastructure has already been hit from both sides. What Iran is now threatening is not a first strike on water. It is an escalation of targeting that has already begun, calibrated to match whatever the United States does to Iranian civilian power generation. This is the escalation ladder that has no rungs left. Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum threatens to plunge Iran into darkness. Iran’s counter threatens to cut water to populations that have no natural freshwater alternative. The humanitarian math is symmetrical and devastating on both sides. Iranian hospitals lose power. Gulf hospitals lose water. Both outcomes produce mass civilian harm within days. Neither side can execute its threat without triggering the other’s response. The Gulf states that co-signed the 23-nation Hormuz statement calling on Iran to cease hostilities are now the states whose water supply Iran has explicitly identified as a retaliatory target. Three of the statement’s signatories, Bahrain, the UAE, and the host country itself, the UAE, depend on desalination for the majority of their drinking water. They signed a document condemning Iran. Iran responded by naming the infrastructure that keeps their citizens alive. The 48-hour clock is running toward March 23. If it expires and Trump strikes power plants, the cascade is not hypothetical. Iran hits desalination. Gulf water supplies collapse within days. Millions of people in the world’s wealthiest per capita nations face a water emergency that no amount of oil revenue can fix because the plants that make the water run on the electricity that comes from the power grid that Iran will target in return. The destruction is circular. Each side’s retaliation enables the other’s next strike. Oil gets the headlines. Helium gets nothing. Water gets less. But water is the threat that turns a military confrontation into a civilisational emergency. You can survive without oil. You can survive without helium. You cannot survive without water. And 48 hours from now, the survival calculation may no longer be theoretical. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Bumper pay awards to FTSE100 bosses. Smith & Nephew CEO pay doubles to $15.3m. Similar story at BP, Shell, Rolls Royce and more. Average real pay for workers unchanged since 2008. Govts preach pay restraint to workers, silence on fat-cattery. archive.ph/w7OZJ

BREAKING: President Trump says the US is “close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East.” The announcement comes 13 minutes after futures markets have closed for the weekend.

EXCLUSIVE: Tory ex-Home Secretary Priti Patel BLOCKED the FBI from quizzing Andrew over Epstein mirror.co.uk/news/politics/… . Priti Patel has questions to answer.

Fossil fuel price shocks are redistribution shocks. Last time, we warned windfall profits would benefit the ultra-rich at the expense of everyone else. This time, there is no excuse. The numbers are in. We need windfall profit taxes & multilateral price caps now.